He visits me in the mornings
and late afternoons,
this Blue Jay.
He sits in the branch of the tree
outside my window and
sings sweetly, mellifluously.
His feathers are a palette
of blues and whites:
a deep ocean mixed
with piercing blue skies
and fluffed up clouds.

He visits me in the mornings
and late afternoons,
this Blue Jay.
I give him some food
and put out some water.
He loves the water –
washes himself with it,
ruffles up his feathers
and shakes the water all over him:
he always makes me smile.

He visits me in the mornings
and late afternoons,
this Blue Jay.
He is the beauty among the chaos
in my world, in this world,
but each day he renews my hope.
When I see him sitting there
my heart swirls
and life doesn’t seem so meaningless.

He visits me in the mornings
and late afternoons,
this Blue Jay.
I hope he never leaves
and keeps coming back
to sing his sweet songs
to satisfy my heart that longs.

As he sits down at the bus stop
and glances at his watch –
a bus pulls up.
He looks: B4.
It’s familiar, he’s seen it before
but he knows it’s not his.
When will the bus come?
Will it?
Waiting… For a bus
that might not come.
Feet start tapping.
Sighs start escaping.
Patience starts flickering.
The wind blows,
papers fly.
A napkin, stained, flitters to his feet
like a butterfly learning to fly.
“Love needs faith”
written in black ink across one corner.
A bus suddenly pulls up.
The doors open.
A hand reaches out.
His smile reaches in.
He takes his hand.
Bus U5.

The faded white paint peels perniciously
from these haunting hospital hallways…
Wards filled with beds filled with bodies filled with sickness:
a stitch in time saves none.

Disinfectant (the omnipresent ghost)
saunters around like a drunk,
making sure to get noticed by all.
Helium-filled GET WELL SOON! balloons
limply deflating among deflated bodies wearing
weathered blood-stained gowns.

They wipe their muddy feet
on the WELCOME mat at the door.
Enter.
Money in their pockets;
guns in their minds.
Secrets as bullets
waiting to kiss someone’s insides.
Tailored suits and fresh crimson roses
in buttonholes.
Hedonistic intentions kept in place (for now)
by tight-fitting waistcoats.
Expensive white smiles
smouldering holes in soft sofas:
even if they noticed, they wouldn’t care.

This is the way the world works the world works the world works
this is the way the world works oh em gee!

“At the age of fourteen I discovered writing as an escape from a world of reality in which I felt acutely uncomfortable.” – Tennessee Williams

You lack the depth
of reality…
Come on, man!
Stop abusing, stop escaping!
Face it head on:
flood light that truth,
fly towards it, bug!
Stop injecting with that stuff,
it’s poison for your veins.
Surely you know that?
I’m third tier looking down,
I’ve been through it all.
Don’t you learn, buddy?
Suck up and deal,
sniff a line of life: it’s free!
It won’t kill you,
fool!
Write out those feelings,
we need you here.
Don’t leave the truth unturned,
disturb the insects,
show them the light!
It’s for their enlightenment.

The bright Sun blankets the fertile soil:
two little seedlings stretch
towards the new warmth.
They rely on the Sun
and each day
She keeps her promise
that She’ll return:
because She values
the honesty of Her work.

She dances through
the sweet jazz
of the clouds,
splashing Her rays across
the smiling sunflowers.
They’re big now,
yet they will always need the Sun.

So the Sun and her Sunflowers
dance on, through nature:
a family;
a timeless photograph of Love.

He stares out of the misty window
into the fogged, greying world
illuminated and sliced open
by one warm Moonbeam of Hope.
Cruising down this Highway Avenue of Life –
the nostalgic Music filling the voids left behind
by the chemical wars fought inside –
he is at ease.

His blue eyes stretch beyond infinities of Sky…
His glossy gaze meets the Moon’s Rays
of Hope in this bumper-to-bumper world:
a Constellation of nine Stars smile brightly
through the darkness of space
as they frame the Moon’s Secretive Smile.
It is here –
in the Honeymoon of his Thoughts –
that he finds the Mysteries of the Moon’s Beauty
tucked away neatly in a Pocket of Sky.

His Thoughts are held together by his five star Mind,
found dancing in the Moonlight of Inspiration,
as his body is showered in his tears
with a ceiling of glittering Stars staring down.
His sadness is blown away with the withered words of hurt
he releases from his Mind,
like a thunder-cloud that releases its darkness
to create Newness.

Four-cornered gods of reflection dictating their insecurities
are reduced to simple stardust in the Moon’s Fire
which ignites his Mind
making real, through word, the Daydreams of his Love.
He has one less problem of heartache tonight
as he lays his pain to rest in his marshmallow lined thoughts
in the creative cloud-mansion of his Future.

They mustn’t twist you
and turn you
and tie you up.
Squeeze you full of this filthy air
and let them pay for you.
You’re worth more.
I don’t want them shaping you,
they mustn’t touch you.
I can’t stand to hear you squeal
as they twist your form to what they want.
Nobody must treat you like a toy;
draw on a face of lies
and then forget about you…
Leave you to deflate
or burst your form into
unrecognisable features
as all the air in your body escapes
and you’re forgotten about
without a care or tear.